UKH

Had my first dose yesterday at 9:40. For someone who hates needles it was swift, painless and very well run. 

21 hours later, almost zero sleep, cold sweats, hot sweats, very painful arm at the injection site, aching and lethargy plus unmentionables.

Rather this that the real thing though, that's for sure.

You can't not mention the unmentionables!

Look at the time, man, people are eating breakfast!

I think its now estimated >1/3 of the population have now had CV, so a lot of people probably have an idea, although obviously a lot of these would have had a mild case or even assymptomatic.

I still dont know if I had CV (and probably never will) but I was quite ill at the start of last year with all the hallmark symptoms. Had my AZ jab last week, mild in comparison but still a sore arm and felt like I had aged by about 30 years for a few days...

That sounds a high estimate, I wonder whose estimate it was? 

The only recent ONS estimate one I could find was 1 in 8 by the end of last year. Obviously we've had the majority of the second wave of infections since then so you could almost double that now but it is still another big step to >1/3.

That sounds like an estimate from the “Covids just a bad cold and we've all had it anyway so why don't we just let it rip to save the economy” end of the internet.

CV has ripped pretty effectively through the population twice now... 

You're only out by a factor of two:

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-15-3-of-englands-population-estimated-t...

Got my first one on May 1st.  

Ok, I had it in mind the figure was quoted from a reputable source, but the only place I can find that figure was The Sun so apologies. From the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/jan/10/one-in-five-ha...

There seems to be a fairly high margin of error in the various estimates but as the number of people "exposed" to CV with vaccine grows it becomes immaterial anyway.

Well I've not had it, unless you're going to allege that both the antibody tests I've done are false negatives.

What does you not personally having caught CV prove?

That it hasn't "ripped through the population".

That's the "everyone has had it near enough" scenario, which is a total fallacy.

It's never 'ripped through the population'.

On 2 occasions it got off to a good start but was arrested by national lockdowns, maybe infecting ~8% of the population on each cases. Even that caused 120k deaths, with the health service just coping. Shudder to think what 'ripping through the population' would have looked like, but unfortunately Brazil and India are finding out.

Nonsense.  It’s brought healthcare to its knees whilst infecting a small fraction of the population twice now and whilst doing so with doubling times much slower than a “rip” due to control measures.
 

No it hasn’t. 
 

this is what that looks like:

(warning: article is grim reading)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/21/system-has-collapsed-india-de...

 

Whatever, it just comes down to what you class as "ripping" - a significant proportion of people infected, people dying in every corner of the UK and an NHS at breaking point sounds pretty significant to me. I never said everyone has had CV, but it seems likely that pretty much everyone will get exposed eventually (hopefully after being vaccinated)

India's per capita infection rate is currently 1/10 of the UK peak  

Infection rate or detected cases rate?  

Yes but not evenly distributed through the country- and testing not likely to be universally available so “headline” figure of limited value, like  in U.K. in first wave. Percentage positive tests more informative, and trajectory of this- the graphs on this are in the article. I think it was “starting to rip” in U.K. in first wave, controlled by lockdown- in Delhi they are reporting 30% positive, what we were seeing on wave 1, but still growing- and without the political Will or realistic capacity to put in place the sort of lockdown that will turn that round. Running these sort of transmission rates over time, rather than as a brief peak rapidly brought down by restrictions on movement, is “ripping through the population”, and as India is demonstrating, the consequences are horrific 

You don't have to do any imagining, sounds like you're having a worse time than a lot of people who have caught actual Covid. Hope you get better soon.

From what my wife has heard anecdotally on a long Covid group, there is a huge variation in the side effects from the vaccine and nobody seems to have yet found the factors that will tell you whether you'll suffer or not.

The only consistent thing I've heard is that you're more likely to get noticeable side effects from AZ than Pfizer.

Seems like you've drawn the short straw, hope you're feeling better by now.

That's what I heard but when I actually got AZ first dose I had zero side effects.  

I hope the second one is as trouble free.  Although, I guess if there's a stronger reaction it is a good sign that the first one had an effect.

Yep. Better kip last night, thanks, and the aches have gone. I'll give myself a rest from hard exercise for a day or two though.

That the new variant appears to be affecting the young seems to be a good reason for putting India on the red list. Odd that it is only being added tomorrow, since Pakistan and Bangladesh have been on it since 9 April, despite having lower incidence, and not having the Indian variant...

And wide variation in effects with first and second jabs, either way.

Hope your second is as easy as first .

India is getting special treatment because it is the great hope of the Brexiteers and there are multiple cabinet ministers of Indian descent.  

To be fair, they don't have much choice but to cozy up to India.  They screwed up our relationship with the EU, they messed up the relationship with the US by getting far too close to Trump, they think it is clever to annoy China. 

Not sure why you are getting such grief about this. The last credible numbers I saw from a good study (can't remember where now but we discussed it on ukc) showed a national average estimate that 20-something% people have been infected. They calculated the estimates by backing out from hospital data using demographic hospitalisation rates, in which way they were able to estimate% infected down to local authority level.  In lots of areas it was over 30% and in a small number of the worst hit local authorities it was above 40%. That's an average across the age range so the numbers in, say, the working age population will be significantly higher. Probably over a third nationally and perhaps over half in some small areas like East London. That was 1-2 months ago I think.

There is nothing in any of this to suggest we should "let it rip." The vaccination effect is already bigger. It's just useful and interesting information.

(I'm also not sure if I've had covid. My son got it last August and I picked up a very mild cough but didn't get tested because a positive result wouldn't have changed my isolation period. Now I wish I had so that I knew. Based on ONS data antibodies seem to drop off after a few months so like you I'll never know.)

Sorry, I see you have already linked what is almost certainly the study I was remembering. There were a lot more infections after the beginning of January too. The peak in cases was only one week before that report was published.

Mrs weasel is really ill following the second dose of AZ vaccine. She's been in bed for 2 weeks now, has had 2 doctors appointments and is on antibiotics, powerful antivirals and prescription painkillers. Her mouth is all blistered so she can't eat anything solid, her lymph glands are painfully swollen, she's in a lot of pain in all of her joints.

Today is the first day where it isn't getting worse, but I don't think we'll be out of the woods for a week or two yet.

The first dose just gave her flu like symptoms for 3 to 4 days so we weren't expecting this. 

That sounds totally awful, my sympathies.

Since those are really significant side-effects, make sure you report them on the yellow card scheme.

She has, and she's starting to get a bit better. 

I had Covid last November, I was lucky, wasn't too bad for me. The only prominent symptoms I had was terrible fatigue for a couple of weeks and a very high temperature and a piercing headache for a weekend. Apparently I was coughing but I really didnt notice, also had a sore throat and diarrhea for a few days, whereas the vaccine gave me tiredness and achiness all over for 24 hours, I was asleep on my sofa only a couple of hours after having the first dose. Apart from the headache and temperature, I'd say I felt worse after the vaccine although it did only last 24 hours.

Had my first AZ dose on saturday lunchtime then made the mistake of going out on the razzle saturday night

It really hasn't. It isn't that contagious so it can run for years unless we vaccinate. People laughed at Fauci's estimates of hundreds of thousands will die. We're now basically numb to the numbers dead.

In the US at most 30-40% have had covid. It's probably around 20-25%. And that led to ~600,000 deaths.